Sabbath: Jesus and the Sabbath
Here is the previous CONTEXT for today’s message:
Genesis 2:1: The Sabbath was a Holy Day for man to Delight in God as The Creator.
Ex. 20:8-11: Remember God as Creator.
Deut. 5:12-15: Observe God as Redeemer.
2 Cor. 3: The Letter of the Law kills, the Spirit brings life. (Only the New Covenant of Salvation by the Faith and Grace of God in Christ Saves!) OUTLINE
I. Jesus teaches He is Lord of the Sabbath (Matt. 12:1-8, Mark 2:27-28)
A. There is no law against eating or walking on the Sabbath.
B. The Sabbath law had been perverted and misused. (vs. 7)
C. Sabbath significance: a blessing not a burden!
D. JESUS is EQUAL to God: He is Sovereign over the Sabbath because He created it. (vs. 8)
II. The Sabbath and Deeds of Mercy.(Luke 14:1-6)
A. There was no law against healing or deeds of mercy.
B. No one but God could HEAL in this way.
III. Jesus’ Sabbath Priorities. (John 5:16-18)
A. Jesus was persecuted (pursued by the Jews) because
1. He was breaking man-made Sabbath traditions.
2. He was “working” to bring the Mosaic Law to completion.
B. Jesus would not rest from His Work until the Sabbath Law was completed in Himself.
Today we look at some of the activities of Jesus on the seventh day Sabbath. Start by looking at Matt. 11: 28 "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Remember what we looked at last week: the burden of the law is that it judges but does not save, but the Lord Jesus and His redemptive work bring grace and life. THAT burden is “light”!)
Lord of the Sabbath
Matt 12: 1-8: At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. 2 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, "Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath."
3 He answered, "Haven't you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread--which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests 5 Or haven't you read in the Law that on the Sabbath the priests in the temple desecrate the day and yet are innocent? (they performed their “work” on the Sabbath!)
David broke the ceremonial law in an hour of need because He and his men were hungry, and that was permitted; the priests were probably present when he did that! The Law did not prohibit plucking grain in order to eat; it prohibited farmers from harvesting their fields. Their objections were concerning an ORAL tradition that misinterpreted the true purpose of the Sabbath Law. (The Pharisees had invented 39 of those NON biblical traditions. They taught that you were only supposed to walk so many steps from your home, but that isn’t what God’s Law taught. Here Jesus teaches that there was no law against eating (or walking) on the Sabbath.
Look at verse 6: I tell you that one greater than the temple is here. (The One who created the Sabbath is here! The things of the temple were only a shadow of the Savior who was to come and save!!!) 7 If you had known what these words mean, 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the innocent. 8 For the Son of Man is Lord (He is SOVEREIGN) of the Sabbath."
The Sabbath law had been perverted and misused. (vs. 7)(The Sabbath was given as a HELP to man to rest from the “everyday” and to remember the Sovereignty of God in Creation, in Life and in Redemption. He is Lord of our lives because He has given life; We know Him as the LORD of Redemption because without the WORK OF CHRIST, we would still be dead in sin..
So Jesus points out the Sabbath significance: It is to be a blessing, not a burden! The Sabbath was intended to be a day when man could enjoy God's divine Creation but also a day when he could examine his own heart before God; he could come before God and receive forgiveness, joy, peace and salvation. It was not created as a day to be “beat down” but to be blessed by God’s Greatness and God’s Goodness. In Mark 2:27 Jesus put it this way, "The Sabbath was made (came into existence) for man (mankind), not man for the Sabbath. 28 So the Son of Man (THE LORD JESUS) is Lord even of the Sabbath."
This was most disturbing to the Pharisees because Jesus was saying that HE was EQUAL to God: Jesus is Sovereign over the Sabbath because He created it, and that is what Jesus claimed because He had the right to do so. (vs. 8)
The Sabbath and Deeds of Mercy
Luke 14:1-6: “One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. 2 There in front of him was a man suffering from dropsy.(a disease in which fluid collects in the cavities of the body. Now called “edema”. Fluid buildup.) 3 Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?" 4 But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, he healed him and sent him away. 5 Then he asked them, "If one of you has a son or an ox that falls into a well on the Sabbath day, will you not immediately pull him out?" 6 And they had nothing to say.”
The Pharisees were so entrenched in their own 39 manmade Sabbath traditions that they failed to see the essence of the Sabbath. There was no law against healing or forbidding to perform deeds of mercy on the Sabbath. Jesus asks: What if your son fell into a well on the Sabbath? Would you watch him drown? What if your ox fell into a well on the Sabbath? Wouldn’t you immediately try to pull it out? Of course you would; If it was permitted to SAVE a LIFE, why would it be sinful to heal someone who had suffered all of their life?!?
The Pharisees had invented human ways in which THEY could maintain the Sabbath, but in the same way that they were totally unable to bring physical healing, their hardened hearts were unable to show mercy. The Pharisees lacked the love, the mercy and the POWER to accomplish what Jesus did, and they recognized that no one but God could HEAL in the way that Jesus did, and it angered them. As Jesus demonstrated His Lordship and Power, He also showed their extreme need but and their towering, sinful pride stood in the way.
Jesus’ Sabbath Priority
John 5:1-18: Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. 2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie--the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. (These are the kind of hopeless and helpless people that Jesus healed. No human being could heal these kinds of diseases-a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophesy and Jesus words in Matt. 11: 5 the BLIND RECEIVE SIGHT and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the POOR HAVE THE GOSPEL PREACHED TO THEM. 6 "And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.")
5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?" 7 "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." 8 Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." 9 At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, 10 and so the Jews said to the man who had been healed, "It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat." 11 But he replied, "The man who made me well said to me, 'Pick up your mat and walk.” 12 So they asked him, "Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?" 13 The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there. 14 Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, "See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you." 15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well.” (His paralysis was not because he had sinned; the “something worse” is if a person does not turn in repentance from their sin to belief, they may be physically well but still eternally dead!)
16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. 17 Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." 18 For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
In this account Jesus does not break one of the 39 Sabbath traditions, but the paralyzed man DOES: Carrying a burden on the Sabbath was forbidden by the Pharisee’s traditions and Jesus commanded him to pick up His bed on the Sabbath. Now I realize that these passages are not given in order to set Sabbath precedence, law or procedures; sometimes people look at passages like this and say: Look what a revolutionary Jesus was! He didn’t follow any Sabbath, but that is not the point at all! He was Lord over the Sabbath!
Jesus was persecuted (pursued by the Jews) because He was breaking MAN-MADE Sabbath traditions. The Pharisees invented HUMAN WAYS of fulfilling the Sabbath which COULD BE accomplished humanly, but Jesus was actually DISPLAYING God’s very character of love, mercy and POWER. What would be better? To bring the mercy of healing to a person who was paralyzed to do anything for himself, or to tell him to stay in that condition because he shouldn’t get his sleeping mat out of the way? The man-made tradition would have stood in the way of God’s mercy and Jesus’ command!
Here is the POINT: The Lord Jesus Christ, sent from God, is God, and He was ALWAYS “WORKING” even as His Father is working to this day, not at CREATING the World (God RESTED from CREATING on the seventh day) but He has continued the work of SAVING, providing, preserving, protecting and upholding the WORLD! Jesus, as God’s Mediator of the New Covenant, as the king of Glory, Jesus was working to bring the Mosaic law to completion.
John 9:16: Therefore some of the Pharisees were saying, "This man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath." But others were saying, "How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?" And there was a division among them.” A sinner would not have the power to perform such signs but the Savior did, and He was not under manmade traditions. He ALWAYS did the will of His Father and He would not “REST” from His Redemptive Work until the Sabbath Law was completed in Himself.
For the Believer, when Saturday rolls around in the life of a Christian, there is no moral law and there are NO TRADITIONS that are mandated by the New Covenant. Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament Seventh Day Sabbath when He died and arose for our sins. Saturdays in our society and in the Church, FOR THE MOST PART, are days of recreation. There are no restrictions or laws forbidding you to spend that day in recreation. (There would be no law AGAINST you honoring God as Creator and Redeemer on Saturday, but it’s not a requirement because Jesus has fulfilled that Sabbath.) Our permanent, immutable and eternal REST is in OUR Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He has fulfilled ALL THE LAW perfectly.
So why do millions of Christians around the world continue to gather for worship on the FIRST day of the Week for thousands of years? Lord willing, we will look at that next week, and in the meantime, REST IN THE LORD of the SABBATH.
